All Hallows Eve, 1929
by Theta Serpentis
Summary: On All Hallows Eve, 1929 three year old Tom Riddle visits his mother's grave, but it's not a normal graveside visit. Possible explanation of why Voldemort likes attacking on Halloween. Character sketch. Warning: cute Tom Riddle.


**All Hallows Eve, 1929**

It was late at night on All Hallows Eve, and in the centre of London, in a little orphanage, most children slept snugly in their beds. But in two rooms the beds were empty, the bed covers pushed back, and the doors hung open. Just down the hall, in another small room, were all the missing children – aged three to seven – in their bedclothes, sitting by an oil lamp. Right next to the lamp, and closest to the lit candles that helped light the room, sat a young woman with room's youngest occupant, aged almost three years, in her lap.

With a smile at the eager faces of the children Martha pulled the squirming form of the almost-three-year-old slightly closer to her, and apparently annoyed with this precaution the little boy put his hand in her hair and yanked.

"Tom! Would you please let go?" The only response to her request was an all-too-believably innocent smile from the child. Realising that this was the best response she would get from the Riddle boy, Martha sighed and reached for the book she had been reading to the orphans for the past week.

"Miss Martha," one of the little girls called out, "Why is Halloween supposed to be special?"

Martha retracted her hand to remove Tom's chubby fingers from her hair, "That's an interesting question, Mary, but if I answer you it will be too late for me to read anything from the book. Some of it might also frighten the younger children, so I'd probably better answer that tomorrow, when it's light, and there are no ghosts about."

Unsurprisingly, this last comment caused almost every child to voice a desire to hear about Halloween. Tom didn't speak, but he did narrow his eyes at that comment and yank Martha's hair again. Martha looked at Tom while she returned to the (apparently eternal) task of removing his clever little fingers from her hair. Tom pouted, pulled away from her, and crossed he arms in front of his chest (apart from the pout, he actually looked very much like a miniature adult) – however, the moment Martha conceded to telling the children about Halloween, Tom snuggled up against her eager to learn, and to be comfortable while doing so. Not that Tom would have ever been caught dead curled up on the lap of Mrs. Cole, or any of the other orphanage workers. In fact, had the precocious child been asked he'd have said that he liked Martha and only Martha.

"Let's see now, Halloween; witches call it Samhain, and the name Halloween originally came from the name 'All Hallows Eve'. It's supposed to be the most magical night of the year, and is the celebration of the Eve before All Hallows Day, or All Saint's Day. Now the celebrations of the Celts – who lived in Britain before us – would begin at sundown, and death and fortune telling were the two main themes of the celebrations."

Tom listened with wide eyes, with almost all of his attention on Martha, although some of the older children were cowering.

Martha continued, "In Wales they say that it's a spirit night, and in Ireland they would actually open tombs so that the dead would be able to come out. All Hallows Eve is the best night of the year for gazing into the future, and is the night when the veil between our world and the next is at its thinnest – the one night of the year when the dead can return to the land of the living, and walk amongst us. When ghosts come out to haunt, especially at midnight; the witching hour, and the gates to the land of the fairies stand open; welcoming us mortals to enter, although we might never return."

A glance at her audience showed bafflement on some of the younger children's faces; it was then that Martha gave up on giving the girl a sensible answer, "This is the night when witches and warlocks gather at their cauldrons to perform the darkest of spells. It is tonight when the vampires and werewolves come out to feast in groups, ready to chomp on defenceless little creatures," she pretended to bite Tom's arm, which made him giggle – disturbing her now enraptured audience, "When the dead walk the Earth, zombies come out of their graves, and ghosts float through houses and halls, some clanking the chains in which they died, some haunting the places they died…But all of them returning because they have unfinished business with us poor mortals, with the living. Sometimes their business is bad for us, sometimes it's good, but they leave their graves tonight to seek us out."

Martha paused she could just hear the clock in Mrs. Cole's room chiming over the sounds of the rain, "But it's late, and far past your bedtime, off with you now. Best not to be about when there are ghosts a-haunting." Martha noted that the last comment got the reaction she had been hoping for as all twelve of the children who'd been sitting on her floor jumped up, as she shifted the thirteenth child in her arms and attempted to stand while getting a firm hold on the small oil lamp.

One of the boys looked at the door in concern, "Miss Martha? The ghosts can't get to us when we're in bed, can they?"

"Aye, Billy, there's not a ghost, nor a ghouly, nor anything else, that can get you when you're safely tucked in under covers. Now off to bed the lot of you, and quietly! Don't be waking the other children."

Once the other children were tucked safely into their beds Martha struggled slightly to remove the peeved child from her person; apparently Tom did not wish to relinquish his warm reasonably comfortable makeshift bed for his real bed and its cold thin sheets. Martha smiled as she exited the boys' room, making a mental note to tell Mrs. Cole in the morning that the sheets would need replacing very shortly. But it was Tom, not Martha, who noticed that she had failed to check the locks on the windows, as he watched her through half-lidded eyes. Once Martha's footsteps had faded into the distance Tom sat up, and would have jumped back out of bed had he not heard the tell tale sounds of the other boys shifting in their beds, trying to get comfortable.

Tom waited for the sounds of movement in the orphanage to quiet, and once everything was still, he crept to the nearest window and opened it. Tom shivered the stone floor was cold on his bare feet. It was quite a drop, but it was less likely to get him noticed than trying to creep down the stairs.

It was fairly windy, and the rain showed no signs of stopping, but Tom made it to the ground without injury, or much noise. As he crossed the courtyard the only sound he made was the soft pitter-patter of his bare feet, his quick, shallow breathing, and the occasional splash when he stepped in a puddle. Tom frowned at the high railings that surrounded the building, he then glanced at the gates, it would be a squeeze to get through the bars, but the railings were too high. _'Fall would hurt_,' Tom bit his lip, _'I don't wanna see Mummy like that.'_ To his amazement, the room between the bars almost seemed to get wider as he slid through them.

It was a long walk to the graveyard where his mother was buried, and with strong winds and freezing rain it certainly wasn't a pleasant one. Tom, shivering, slid through the bars of the gate which surrounded the old churchyard, and began to stumble between the muddy graves to find his mother's. Which was almost impossible the moon was almost new and light was scarce. Little Tom bit his lip, thinking, '_So dark,_ c_an't see! Mrs Cole could know! She'll be mad…so wet…'_

A loud crack of thunder split the air, jolting Tom from his thoughts and – as he jerked round in shock – caused him to fall face down in the mud. '_Mrs. Cole will be so mad,_' Tom thought as he slowly pushed himself off the ground, as he raised his muddy face he could make out the form of a small gravestone before him. The large tree in the graveyard creaked and groaned in the storm, its long branches were whipped every which way by the strong winds, and lightning struck the tree. It was this same bolt of lightning that split the tree in half that gave precocious little Tom a chance to read the gravestone – not that all of it made sense to him,

_R.I.P. _

_Mrs. Riddle_

_d. December 31__st__, 1926_

_Loving mother._

Tom froze; he had – quite literally – stumbled onto the thing he'd been looking for and – despite the thick mud – curled up next to his mother's grave to wait. Another flash of lighting signalled the start of even harder rain, it was actually getting closer to hail than rain. Tom slowly stopped shivering: as minutes of waiting turned to hours he shifted closer to his mother's gravestone; as if expecting it to be warmer. _'Come Mum, please come…Martha said…Martha said you'd come…' _

Had anyone passed by at that moment they would have seen a little boy sitting, completely drenched and very muddy, by a grave, they probably wouldn't even have noticed that he was crying – his tear were lost in the rain.

Tom chanced a glance away from the grave to stare at the clock on the side of the church, squinting as if that would make him able to read the time in the dark, like adults he'd seen often did while waiting. Another flash would have allowed him to read the clock but Tom couldn't read so he didn't know that it was almost one in the morning. But if Tom had been looking at himself rather than the clock he would have realised that he was turning blue. He did, however, attempt to move his little body closer to the grave, but weighed down with mud and mostly numb it was almost impossible to move. _'Maybe she's at the orphanage…Martha said she'd come back…she promised… maybe she don't wanna see me, maybe that's why she died…'_

Tom slid down towards the ground; dazed, confused, and bizarrely sleepy. It was that movement only which allowed the passing policeman to notice him. Tom was only vaguely aware of the policeman picking him up and carrying him to the orphanage. However, when Mrs. Cole opened the door, with Martha by her side, Tom managed to speak. To Martha's eye he looked at her with an expression which should never be seen on a child, and the two words he spoke confirmed her fears.

"You lied," Tom rasped from the policeman's arms.

Tom Riddle never liked anyone after that.


End file.
